Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Officials confirm year’s second right whale death

June 24, 2019 — The second dead right whale of the year was found Thursday by a surveillance flight, drifting northeast of the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, according to the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The death was confirmed by New England Aquarium, which has identified the whale as “Punctuation,” an adult female that has been studied by researchers for nearly 40 years and seen more than 250 times along the coast of the U.S. and Canada.

The aquarium maintains a photographic identification catalog that encompasses most of the right whale population. Punctuation was first photographed in 1981.

“All right whale deaths hit hard, but this one is particularly devastating to the population,” the aquarium staff wrote in an emailed statement.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Rep. Moulton seeking money for right whale research

June 21, 2019 — U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton is trying to secure additional funding for North Atlantic right whale research through an amendment to the federal government funding bill for fiscal year 2020.

Moulton, D-Salem, successfully amended the House of Representatives’ funding bill to include an additional $1.5 million for cooperative research by federal fishery regulators, commercial fishermen and conservation groups.

The amended funding bill now contains $2.5 million for right whale research.

To secure the funding however, the amended legislation first must first pass the House next week and survive negotiations between the House and the Senate on a final spending bill. Ultimately, it would have to have to be signed by President Donald J. Trump.

Moulton, a Democratic presidential candidate, said the fight to save the remaining North Atlantic right whales — whose population now is estimated at 411 — “is also a fight to protect thousands of jobs in commercial fishing and tourism in Massachusetts.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

As right whales surge north, one death too many

June 17, 2019 — Before the leviathan was dragged to shore, before it was found floating at sea trailing a slick of blood, the massive creature had had its run-ins with its greatest nemesis: human beings.

This North Atlantic right whale — among the most endangered species on the planet — was known by researchers as Wolverine, for three propeller cuts on its tailstock that reminded them of the trio of blades used by the comic book character of the same name. In its short life of nine years, journeying through thousands of miles of dense fishing grounds, the whale had endured at least one vessel strike and three entanglements in fishing gear.

Now, Wolverine was decomposing on a grassy beach at the northernmost tip of New Brunswick’s Acadian peninsula, its large, black fins inert in the salty air, its wide fluke tangled in red rope that the Canadian Coast Guard used to haul its carcass in from the frigid waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The death of even one of the mammals poses a grave threat to the species, given how few remain. But almost as notable is that Wolverine was here at all.

Until recently, right whales were seldom seen this far north. Now about a third of the species regularly comes to feed in these frigid waters. It has proved to be a very dangerous migration.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

MASSACHUSETTS: Offshore drilling ban gets airing

June 4, 2019 — Trump administration plans to encourage offshore oil and gas drilling are motivating attempts to exempt Massachusetts, and maybe foil the entire scheme.

Lawmakers are weighing a ban on drilling for oil or gas in state waters, as well as a prohibition on the lease of state lands for oil or gas exploration, development or production.

While there are no immediate plans to drill off the New England coast, green groups say the proposal would fend off future efforts by denying access to the state’s land and waters, thus making exploration impractical.

The legislation, which goes before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture on Tuesday, is part of a multi-state effort to thwart President Donald Trump’s plan to open more than 90 percent of the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration.

New Jersey, Delaware and California passed offshore drilling bans last year. Similar legislation has been filed in New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Environmentalists say drilling will harm ecosystems and endangered species, such as the North Atlantic right whale, while threatening commercial fishing and tourism businesses.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Right Whales Seen in High Numbers in Cape Cod Bay

May 19, 2019 — Whale researchers at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center are observing large numbers of North Atlantic right whales and other whale species in Northeast waters.

An aerial team flying for the Center out of the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station at Joint Base Cape Cod and from Hyannis, are continuing their long-term survey for right whales.

The effort supports a range of research and is part of an annual seasonal distribution and abundance survey of protected marine animals along the East Coast.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

A daunting task begins: Reducing lobster gear to save whales

May 6, 2019 — Fishing managers on the East Coast began the daunting process this week of implementing new restrictions on lobster fishing that are designed to protect a vanishing species of whale.

A team organized by the federal government recommended last week that the number of vertical trap lines in the water be reduced by about half. The lines have entrapped and drowned the North Atlantic right whale, which numbers a little more than 400 and has declined by dozens this decade.

The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission met Monday outside Washington to discuss the implementation of the new rules, which are designed to reduce serious injuries and deaths among whales by 60 percent.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times 

Protection of Rare Whale, Fishing Rules on Agenda This Week

April 22, 2019 — A federal government group that seeks to keep whales safe from threats is meeting in Rhode Island this week to try to find solutions to save the North Atlantic right whale.

The right whales are among the rarest marine mammals, numbering about 411. Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team is holding its meeting in Providence from Tuesday to Friday. The team was created by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to reduce injuries and deaths that whales suffer due to entanglement in fishing gear.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S News and World Report

Report finds ‘alarming unaddressed deficiencies’ in US offshore oil drilling

April 18, 2019 — Even as the Trump administration has taken steps to expand offshore oil drilling, a new report shows that thousands of oil spills are still happening and that workers in the oil and gas industry are still dying on the job.

The report comes from Oceana, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the oceans, which has sued the federal government to stop seismic airgun blasting in the Atlantic Ocean. The blasting is the first step needed to allow offshore drilling, when seismic airguns are used to find oil and gas deep under the ocean. Every state along the Atlantic coast has opposed the blasting, worried that spills could hurt tourism and local fisheries. Some scientists say the testing could also hurt marine life, including the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale. The group tied its report, released Thursday, to the ninth anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to show what has been happening since the government promised to hold the industry accountable to higher safety standards.

Read the full story at CNN

Canadian-U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting: U.S. and Canadian lobstermen have a whale of a problem

April 17, 2019 — Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher sure knows how to quiet a room.

On April 5, about 100 members of the U.S. and Maine lobster industry — fishermen, dealers, scientists, and regulators — gathered for the 15th Canadian-U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting at the Westin Portland Harborview Hotel in Portland. There they heard Keliher announce that he’d just received an email from NOAA Fisheries announcing that, in order to protect endangered right whales, “the U.S. fishery will likely have to be reduced 60 to 80 percent.”

It’s a testament to the cardiac health of Maine and Canadian lobstermen that the statement didn’t produce a mass heart attack, especially since it came during a discussion of what fishing restrictions might be imposed by NOAA Fisheries this spring to meet the demands of the federal Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection acts.

What almost everyone in the room heard, though, wasn’t all that Keliher said. Thanks to a snafu with the microphone, the audience missed the beginning of the NOAA statement that said “whale mortalities” from U.S. fisheries would have to be reduced by “60 to 80 percent,” not the fisheries themselves.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Regulators Unveil Risk-Assessment Tool Designed To Help Reduce Right Whale Entanglements

April 17, 2019 — Federal fisheries regulators demonstrated a new risk-assessment tool on Tuesday, aimed at helping the survival of the North Atlantic right whale. It comes on the eve of regulatory decisions that could affect the fate of the endangered species — and the lobster industry, as well.

Federal scientists say the new data model should help lobstermen and conservationists make collaborative decisions about reducing dangers that fishing gear poses for the endangered species.

In a webinar presentation to stakeholders, the model got a skeptical reception from some stakeholders, who are preparing for what could be a decisive meeting on the issue next week.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio